Bucket List
by Nefertiri's Handmaiden
Summary: "You made me CEO, and you gave the art to the Boy Scouts, and you held the Expo. Tony, you let Jim take a Suit." Pepper confronts Tony on the way back to Malibu. Post Iron Man 2, contains spoilers.


Bucket List

Nefertiri's Handmaiden

Disclaimer: I so don't own Ironman, the comic or the movie, or Robert Downey, Jr. Which, when you think about it, is really a bummer.

Rating: PG-13

Summary: "You made me CEO, and you gave the art to the Boy Scouts, and you held the Expo. Tony, you let Jim take a Suit." Pepper confronts Tony on the way back to Malibu. Post Iron Man 2, contains spoilers.

-SI-

Tony was cute when he was napping, Pepper decided.

They were at 30,000 feet, halfway back to Malibu. He was dozing on the couch in the main cabin, having not slept in days and exhausted from weeks of stress and the fight with the Hammer-droids and Vanko. Pepper sat in a chair near Tony's couch, sipping at a class of rum and coke in an effort to relax, glancing at him often in consideration to reassure herself that he was okay. Tony had fallen asleep in his seat before the plane left the ground, and had woken only long enough to remove his shoes, relocate to the couch and zonk out again. She'd laid a blue fleece blanket over his shoulders after he'd been down for the count. Since then, Tony had shifted to his side and the movement had left the blanket low across his hips. He didn't seem to be cold, so she let him be, afraid that fussing might wake him.

His new and improved arc reactor glowed brightly from beneath his white T-shirt. He'd told her all about it and the palladium on their way to the airport to board the jet. His hair was in disarray. He hadn't combed it after the shower he took in New York, and sleeping on it had made it poufy and messy, dark strands curling every which way. His face was relaxed, which made him look a little younger than he was - certainly younger than he'd looked since he returned from Afghanistan. Pepper determined that, with his hair so out of control like that and the lines around his eyes smoothed out, he looked pretty adorable.

She let him sleep for a few hours, needing the time to process the last 48 hours and all the revelations they'd had. Plus he really needed the sleep. But when they were over New Mexico, she carefully rose, stretching her back after so many hours sitting still, and made her way to his couch. She perched on the couch in the empty space in front of his abdomen. She ran a hand through his hair. He sighed in contentment, so she did it again. After a few moments, his eyelids drifted up. He blinked a few times before his dark eyes focused on her. He smiled sleepily at her. She couldn't help but smile back.

"Hell of a nice way to wake up," he said, his words slurred a bit from sleep and his voice rough.

"You made me CEO," she said.

His eyebrows scrunched at the non sequitur. "What?"

"You made me CEO," she repeated.

"And you quit."

"And you gave the art to the Boy Scouts."

He huffed. "Pepper. I'm still half asleep here. You have to explain a little more for me to get what you're talking about."

"You made me CEO, and you gave the art to the Boy Scouts, and you held the Expo. Tony, you let Jim take a Suit."

"I know of all this."

"I thought you were just being a jerk, but that's wasn't it at all, was it?" she asked, eyes starting to fill with tears. "You were getting your affairs in order. You were getting ready to die."

He shifted and sat up. "Yes," he said simply. "I was." She stared at him a minute and then she hit him hard on the arm. "Ow!" he said in surprise.

"You jackass! Did you meeting with your lawyer behind my back, too, to revise your will? Did you write fucking goodbye letters?" She cried as she yelled at him and hit his chest and arms.

He caught her wrists so she'd stop hitting him. "Yes. I goaded Rhodey into stealing a Suit so that I wouldn't have to explain and give him one. I tried to do a last few good works. I met with my lawyer. I recorded goodbye messages. And I got you as far away from me as I could bear before it got too bad."

She calmed as he spoke. He released her wrists and she let them drop uselessly into her lap. She blinked back more tears. "Tony, why didn't you just tell me?"

He wrapped her in his arms and held her close. "I'm sorry," he said. "Really. For scaring you at my birthday and for the stupid strawberries and for not telling you and everything."

She clutched at his back and sniffled into the shoulder of his T-shirt. "You came to the office to tell me."

"I tried. You wouldn't let me. I wanted you to know-"

She cut him off, crying in earnest now. "I wouldn't listen. Tony, you were trying to say goodbye. I wouldn't listen and what if… what if that… had been the last… the last time-"

"Shh," he soothed her. "It's okay. I shouldn't have waited. I just- I was scared. I was scared and I didn't know how to say all the things that I wanted to say."

"How could I have not noticed?" she asked brokenly. It wasn't entirely clear if she was talking to him or to herself.

He pulled back to look her in the eyes, and wiped away a few errant tears from her cheeks with his fingers. "Because I was hiding it and keeping you busy with as much shit as I could to keep your attention on other things. You've told me before I'm a manipulative bastard," he said with a half smile, trying to lighten up the situation.

She didn't seem amused. "Tony, you told me. You said about the chlorophyll. I didn't even ask."

"I had just told you that you were going to be the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. You were a little distracted - understandably and kind of by design."

Her eyes narrowed a little at that comment. "Did you only make me CEO to get me out of the way?"

He crooked a grin. "No. I made you CEO because I knew that no one could run that company as well as you. And there's no one else on the planet I trust more . There's no one else I would trust my father's legacy to. Getting you out of the way was only a perk."

Pepper's moment of anger passed. "I'm sorry I didn't listen when you tried to tell me."

He shrugged. "You were angry. You had a right to be angry. I should have done it right. And I shouldn't have acted the way I did."

She smiled a little. "How about we just forgive each other and let it be?"

He smiled. "I like that."

She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. He stayed still while she did, savoring the feel of her lips against him. When she pulled back, her eyes were steel. "Never keep something so important from me again."

"I promise."

"Good." She kissed him again, harder this time, and little more possessively. He pulled her to him again, giving back as good as he got, holding her as close as he could.

When they broke, he took a deep breath to calm his nerves. "Can I tell you what I wanted to tell you before? I mean, before at your office? When I fucked it up with strawberries?"

"Tony, I know you were dying. But now you're not-" Her eyes widened. "Right?"

"No, no, I'm good. The Starkadium is keeping me poison-free. But I wanted to tell you something else."

"Oh. All right."

"Right. Good. Okay. Here we go. So, the thing about it is- Well, what I'm trying to say is that-"

"Tony," she interrupted. He shut up and looked at her. "Spit it out."

He thought for a moment. He thought about what he'd said in her office. "I need you," he blurted. "I need you in my life and I need you with me. And not just now, or when I'm dying. Always. I always need you. I will always need you. Because I love you. I love you and I need you and please don't ever leave me."

She let out a little gasp when he said he loved her, but by the end of his ramble she was smiling at him. He stared at her expectantly when he finished, breathing a little apprehensively. She cupped his face in her palms and kissed him very sweetly. He kissed back a little desperately, unsure if this was a good kiss as a precursor to telling him that she thought he was awesome and she loved him back and she was going to move in with him and he should clear out a walk-in closet for all of her high heels and hey, if he wanted, she would wear that red pair while they had sex, or if it was a goodbye kiss before she told him she didn't love him at all, not even a little bit, and what was he thinking and she was leaving to go become a housewife to a Canadian farmer who didn't believe in cell phones and didn't even have wireless Internet and was never attacked by crazy Russian physicists with plasma whips.

"I love you, too, Tony," she whispered against his lips. He exhaled in relief and clutched her closer, kissing her with renewed interest. He trailed his lips over her jaw, cheek, and ear, nipping lightly at the lobe. She murmured appreciatively. He wondered what else would get her to make that sound. Or some other sounds. Louder sounds. More moan-ier sounds. Or sounds that sounded like her screaming his name…

"I'll never leave you," she murmured into his ear as she sunk her fingers in to his messy hair. He slipped one of his hands under her shirt and ran it across the smooth skin of her back.

"Good. Now no more talking. I'm about to initiate you into the very exclusive mile-high club."

She laughed at his antics at first, but soon neither of them were laughing. They had time before the plane was scheduled to land, and Tony intended to use it.

-end-


End file.
